![]() ![]() She was a mere constitutional figurehead, and personal likes and dislikes had to be subordinated to the dignity of her high office. But in return, she surrendered her private life. As the United Kingdom’s monarch, she had wealth and castles, horses and corgis, servants at her beck and call every day of her life. Service as the Queen of the United Kingdom may not seem onerous. Princess Elizabeth explaining her expertise to the Queen Mother in April 1945 / International Museum of World War II ![]() And quiet dedication marked the rest of her long life. “There is a motto which has been borne by many of my ancestors-a noble motto, ‘I serve,’” Elizabeth explained in her birthday broadcast. During the grim days of the War, she trained as an auto mechanic, perhaps the first time since Boadicea that a Queen of England dressed for battle. Somehow she remained unspoiled by her privileged position. Instead of being a fifth wheel in the British royal family, she was behind the steering wheel. After his abdication her father George became king and suddenly young Elizabeth was the heir apparent, and, in due course, the Queen. But he threw it over for a divorced American gold-digger, Mrs. Her uncle Edward was the Prince of Wales and was meant to inherit the throne. Her vocation as Queen was not one that she chose for herself, but one given to her by history. Whether or not she knew of John Henry Newman’s famous prayer, she would have approved: “God has created me to do Him some definite service He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.”īuilding a new world after the devastation of the War would be difficult, Elizabeth told her worldwide listeners, and “we must give nothing less than the whole of ourselves.” It may be an old-fashioned way of speaking, but Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor knew that she had a vocation, a calling, a dedication to something higher than herself. “I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong,” she said. The young queen-to-be saw things differently. Nowadays a 21st birthday is a milestone marking the passage from dependence to independence, a celebration of liberation, of doing it my way. It was delivered in 1947 on a radio broadcast from South Africa, where she was on a royal tour with her parents and her sister. The most memorable speech that Queen Elizabeth II ever gave was five years before her coronation. ![]()
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